China’s first gay student group

The Sun Yat-Sen University (中山大学) in Zhuhai made headlines recently with the establishment of the first gay support group on a Chinese university campus. This is the first legally registered student group, which will perhaps set a precedent for similar groups at Chinese universities that are still informal or unregistered. You can read an interview (in Chinese) with Ai Xiaoming and Li Yinhe (the latter recently made headlines again because she “endorses” wife-swapping) and learn about some of the issues involved in setting up a gay-rights or gay-themed student group at a university. Apparently Sun Yat-sen University has a history of openness — they even staged a performance of The Vagina Monologues there. The new student group is called “Happy Together” (an homage to Wong Kar-wai, not The Turtles) in English and in Chinese it’s known as the 彩虹社 (caihong she or Rainbow Group).Photo from news163.com.